A Measure of Decision Flexibility
This work addresses the need for a formal measure of flexibility in decision-making under uncertainty, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing flexibility concepts.
The authors tackled the problem of quantifying decision flexibility for risk-averse decision-makers, proposing a simple analytical approach that compares flexibility across plans and aids in finding more flexible alternatives.
We propose a decision-analytical approach to comparing the flexibility of decision situations from the perspective of a decision-maker who exhibits constant risk-aversion over a monetary value model. Our approach is simple yet seems to be consistent with a variety of flexibility concepts, including robust and adaptive alternatives. We try to compensate within the model for uncertainty that was not anticipated or not modeled. This approach not only allows one to compare the flexibility of plans, but also guides the search for new, more flexible alternatives.